Alone
by PrincessAlica
Summary: Scarlett the evening after Melanie's death, the same evening that Rhett left her, finally feeling like she is completely alone. Corrected formatting!


I've adjusted formatting. I don't know what happened last night! ** I'm sorry that it has been so long since I posted on here. I could tell you that my life has been busy, and it has been, crazy busy in fact, but sometimes I just let myself get sucked into other creative pursuits and then I have no time for my previous loves. But recently I was reminded about how important it is to remember the things you love. A dear friend of mine that I only met through Gone With the Wind FanFiction passed away. She at once time had several stories posted her on , but eventually she took those down and moved them to AO3. She frequently read the earliest drafts of my stories and whatever drabbles I came up with, lavishing me with praise and encouragement. Our friendship progressed over the decade that I knew her to more than just a Gone With the Wind friend, but to a true friend that I shared my life with over the internet, sharing pictures of the children I'm raising and asking her advice at times when I needed someone older and wiser than myself. She messaged me back in the summer of 2019 to tell me that she had been diagnosed with 5 types of cancer after breaking her hip during the spring. Corrin and I of course started praying as she asked, and I was thrilled when in September she messaged me to tell me that the cancer was gone, that the prayers had worked. I didn't hear from her after that, and I just naively assumed that we were both busy with our lives outside of the internet, until I went to wish her a belated Merry Christmas, only to discover that she had succumbed to the cancer at the end of October. So I dedicate this and all future writing to my own Melanie, Sara Muir, (Rubeandodo, Bella Le Strange) , who was a constant source of encouragement and friendship and is already deeply missed. Sara, this is for you!**

The house was too quiet, the silence wrapping around Scarlett's limbs as she curled herself into a ball on her bed, waiting for sleep to claim her. She could cope with whatever was happening to her until these quiet moments when her only companion was the silence, the silence of those who were not there.

Wade and Ella had been sent on ahead to Tara with Prissy, once Scarlett had enough of her wits about her to remember that she had left them behind in Marietta. Once that task was squared away, she hurried over to Ashley and Melanie's little house to begin planning for Melanie's service. For all of the old hens that couldn't stand Scarlett most of the time, they were awfully dependent on her in this moment. And Ashley had been worthless, no, he had been less than worthless. And that was fine. Scarlett thrived on having tasks to complete, it was now that she was alone that she truly began to grieve what she had lost in a single night.

"She didn't want to think about it, didn't want to feel the pain of losing Rhett, of losing her love for Ashley, and losing Melanie in a single evening. The realization that she no longer loved Ashley was confusing, but it did not pierce her heart as did the loss of Rhett's love and the loss of Melanie. She never realized even in the darkest days how much she relied on the both of them to be there with her. It was though there was no longer solid ground under her feet. Everything she knew was gone, like the night she had returned home to Tara during the war, only to find everything had changed. And the constant presence of Mammy was absent from the house, as she had returned to Tara after Bonnie's death. There was no one left to comfort her. She was alone.

Scarlett climbed from the bed and grabbed a wrapper, sneaking out of her bedroom, thought there was no one to hear her wandering as she tiptoed down the stairs into the parlor. She was startled to find each container of spirits had been drained. She continued to rummage through the drawers hoping that whoever had emptied the bottles had blessedly missed one, just a single bottle, just a few drops to anesthetize her wounds.

Her mind wandered to Rhett once again, wondering if he had been the one to spill the contents to wound her, for surely none of the servants were brave enough to face her if they had committed the crime. Surely Rhett had done it to spite her, she thought, for a moment, that even a single flash of anger meant that he still must love her to do something like this. Certainly he had once rambled on as to how love and hate were the sides of the same coin, or some other nonsense. And yet none of it mattered. There was nothing to blot out the memories, nothing to damper her pain. Scarlett finally sat down at the table, dropped her head and began to cry. The pain of the past days and of the past year slammed into her, and her breath came in shuddering gasps as the sobbing shook her body.

Melanie Wilkes was gone. Someone that she had never valued enough, someone that deserved so much more recognition for the roll that she had played in Scarlett's life, and in the lives of Scarlett's children. And now Melanie was gone, like Scarlett's mother, and it seemed as thought another glimmering remnant of life from before had slipped between her fingers yet again. Scarlett realized that she had never deserved Melanie's love and devotion, but she had been lavished with it all the same. Melanie's constant praises for things that Scarlett struggled to see as anything but unladylike and against what Ellen had tried to instill in her. Rhett was right about one thing, Melanie Wilkes was the only truly kind person that Scarlett had ever met, and that knowledge burned inside Scarlett, twisting like a heated dagger, tearing at the fabric of Scarlett's existence. Scarlett began listing all of her failings and all of the ways that she had wronged Melanie over the years, and she prayed, prayed to Melanie, prayed her Mother, and prayed to the Virgin Mary that Melanie would forgive her for her failings, many though they were. And Scarlett fell asleep, her tears washing away the anguish, and for a moment, she felt that Melanie was in the room with her one last time, offering her a final embrace to strengthen her to face the days to come.


End file.
